Psyche Spinner: Iran's Poorest on Drugs

My mother just returned to Iran. When she called this morning I thought she was just calling to inform me of her safe arrival. Instead, her voice was shaking. Fatemeh Khanoom, the woman who cleans my mother's house and whom I had written about for women's day, was there bearing the news that her husband had gone insane. "Why?" I asked my mother, she replied, "You know how he was an opium addict?" I answer yes. "Well," my mom continued, "he took a pill the dealer gave him called Ravangardan (psyche spinner) and he went insane. He broke everything in the house and went on the rooftop yelling at the top of his voice." She added, "Fekr konam hamoon LSDieh. I think it is that LSD."...

I called a friend of mine who is well versed in these matters and had just come back from Tehran a couple of weeks ago. I asked him if he has heard of a drug named Ravangardan. He told me that he has not but that it could be what people in South Tehran call Ecstasy or LSD. I asked him if it is true that there has been a recent flooding of the market with drugs, and he told me yes. A couple of years ago, my friend informed me that Crystal Meth (or Shisheh as Iranians call it) went 100,000 toomans for one gram. Today it costs only 10,000 toomans.

"Ever since the post-election unrest, they dropped the price so that the youth would get high and not take to the streets in protest." I asked him who is 'they', and he replied, "everyone knows that it is the Sepah (IRGC) that sells drugs in Iran." My friend went on to tell me that cocaine was very difficult to find five years ago in Tehran, but it is now readily available for 100,000 toomans a gram. "And it is good coke, they say they get it from Indonesia," he said. "Indonesia? I did not think they produced cocaine there," I said. He told me, "I don't know, that is what everyone says. Maybe they get it from South America; they have good friends there!" South Tehran, with a much poorer population, is on Shisheh while North Tehranis prefer cocaine.

[Thanks Richard!]